Designing Work Systems

What Workers Need Changing demographics and life styles Worker needs vary by age, gender, race, physical abilities, and marital and family status. Employee needs for work/life balance Workers are less committed to organizations today but also suffer from burnout and lower performance. Employee needs representation (“voice”) Workers want to be involved in work-related issues and expect the organization to listen to their concerns. Employee concerns about safety in the workplace Workers want a safe, hazard-free working environment.

OR Design of Work Systems Job Specialization Job Enrichment Based on Frederick Taylor’s Scientific Management Creates jobs with very narrow task (activity) assignments. Resulted in high efficiency, quickly achieved job competency, low training costs, but also created monotonous jobs. OR Job Enrichment Started with Hawthorne Experiments Increasing the amount of responsibility for quality and productivity that employees have for their own work.

Ways to Enrich Jobs Job Enlargement Job Rotation Vertical Loading An increase in task variety in an attempt to relieve boredom. Job Rotation Employees are moved across different specialized positions. Vertical Loading Is the reassignment of job responsibility formerly delegated to the supervisor to the employee. Job Characteristics Model Employee Involvement Model

Five Core Job Characteristics Skill variety Task identity Task significance Autonomy Feedback

Job Characteristics Model Skill variety Task Identity Task Significance Autonomy Feedback “Psychological States” Meaningfulness Responsibility Knowledge of Results Outcomes Motivation Performance Satisfaction Commitment Retention Growth Need